Mon October 17, 2011

On the presidential campaign trail, Gov. Rick Perry has explained his much-maligned effort to make the human papillomavirus vaccine mandatory for school-aged girls by saying he hates the cervical cancer it causes and will “always err on the side of savings lives.”

Yet he gets some of his biggest applause in early primary states when he brags of signing a state budget that largely defunds Planned Parenthood — which provides four times more cervical cancer screenings every year in Texas than abortions.

The most dramatic moment of the GOP debate in Florida last Monday revolved around Gov. Rick Perry and his 2007 executive order mandating that all 11- and 12-year-old girls in Texas get the HPV vaccine. The human papillomavirus vaccine protects women and teens against a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer.

During the debate, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called Perry's executive order an example of crony capitalism.

2012 Presidential Election

11:58 am

Thu September 15, 2011

If nothing else, the controversy over Texas Gov. Rick Perry's mandating the use of the human papillomavirus vaccine in 12-year old girls, demonstrates the pronounced contradictions in his professed world view.

The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination accepts the scientific consensus when it comes to the safety and efficacy of the vaccine that prevents the HPV virus that causes cervical and other cancers.

But he has openly expressed doubts about the scientific consensus in the matters of evolution or the human role in global warming.